Rate My Professor Priya Pal

Priya Pal, MD, PhD, is an Instructor in Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Washington University in St. Louis. She joined the department in July 2024. Dr. Pal completed her undergraduate training at Florida State University, earning a BS in Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Biomedical Mathematics in 2008. She received her MD and PhD from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis in 2017, with her PhD in Molecular Microbiology and Microbial Pathogenesis awarded in 2015. She completed medical residency at Tulane University from 2017 to 2020 and an infectious diseases fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis from 2020 to 2022. She also completed postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Liang Shan.

Dr. Pal specializes in HIV basic science and translational research. Her work focuses on investigating the host-pathogen interface and the molecular basis of how HIV evades the immune system. Her research examines how X4-tropic viruses are suppressed by the immune system in the presence of R5-tropic viruses during early stages of HIV infection and the mechanisms leading to the emergence of suppressed X4-tropic virus subsets in later stages. The goal is to identify novel targets for therapeutics to eliminate R5-tropic virus from people living with HIV. She runs an HIV cure trial through the Infectious Disease clinical research unit and serves on the inpatient infectious disease consult service. Dr. Pal has received several recognitions, including the CROI New Investigator Award in 2024 and the Humanism in Medicine Award in 2017. Her select publications include studies on Plasmodium falciparum proteins and the CARD8 inflammasome in HIV infection.